Henry A. Kissinger

90% of politicians give the other 10% a bad name.

— Henry A. Kissinger

I believe it is a mistake to isolate arms control from other areas of policy.

— Henry A. Kissinger

Before the Freedom of Information Act, I used to say at meetings "The illegal we do immediately. The unconstitutional takes a little…

— Henry A. Kissinger

The convictions that leaders have formed before reaching high office are the intellectual capital they will consume as long as they continue…

— Henry A. Kissinger

Nothing is more urgent than a serious, dare I say compassionate, debate as to where we are going at home and abroad.…

— Henry A. Kissinger

Jews were segregated from 1933 on. We could only play against other Jewish teams. This wasn't just social segregation; this was the…

— Henry A. Kissinger

The Russian people, at least the ones I know, have pride in being a Russian. And, therefore, they want to be taken…

— Henry A. Kissinger

There are only two reasons to sit in the back row of an airplane: Either you have diarrhea, or you're anxious to…

— Henry A. Kissinger

John Paul II was one of the greatest men of the last century. Perhaps the greatest.

— Henry A. Kissinger

Does anyone have any questions for my answers?

— Henry A. Kissinger

Taiwan will probably not declare independence. The question isn't independence. The issue is whether Taiwan will declare itself as a sovereign separate…

— Henry A. Kissinger

China is a country with a record of continuous self-government going back 4,000 years, the only society that has achieved this. One…

— Henry A. Kissinger

With proper tactics, nuclear war need not be as destructive as it appears.

— Henry A. Kissinger

I think a resumption of the Cold War would be a historic tragedy. If a conflict is avoidable, on a basis reflecting…

— Henry A. Kissinger

University politics make me long for the simplicity of the Middle East.

— Henry A. Kissinger

There is no realism without an element of idealism.

— Henry A. Kissinger

Leaders are responsible not for running public opinion polls but for the consequences of their actions.

— Henry A. Kissinger

Any international system must have two key elements for it to work. One, it has to have a certain equilibrium of power…

— Henry A. Kissinger

What China would do, I cannot predict. China has all but given up the claim to the use of force, except in…

— Henry A. Kissinger

The challenge is whether China as a rising country, the United States as the superpower, can develop a cooperative relationship in this…

— Henry A. Kissinger

Committees are consumers and sometimes sterilizers of ideas, rarely creators of them.

— Henry A. Kissinger

Realism in foreign policy is made up of a clear set of values, since difficult foreign policy decisions are often decided with…

— Henry A. Kissinger

The essence of Richard Nixon is loneliness.

— Henry A. Kissinger

The first reactions are often instinctive. So one of the first things we said was that the Chinese had no right to…

— Henry A. Kissinger

Well it did not make excessive sense to say that 20 million people are the recognized government of a billion people that…

— Henry A. Kissinger